this is us, this is us
by Marvelgeek42
Summary: Dudley is twelve and his first begins bleeding during lunch on the seventh of December. It's Desdemona's eleventh birthday and no letter arrives. She punches the wall until her parents drag her away. [Soulmate!AU]


**Romance Awareness:** **You feel everything your soulmate feels.**

 **Word Count: 653**

 **Desdemona is kind of an OC and kind of not? She's the younger Muggle sister of Hermione. She's a black panromantic asexual. A few friends of mine have headcanons, longer story/verse to follow.**

* * *

Dudley is five and his face hurts, despite the fact that no one at his primary school would dare to punch him.

"Shh, Diddykins, it's alright," his mother consoles him, wiping his crocodile tears away, as she gives him more ice cream. "It's probably just your soul mate's pain. You'll protect them once you've met them."

 **.**

 _Desdemona is four and someone had insulted her sister at the playground. She doesn't know what the word means, but she knows it's mean._

 _She knows that last month her mum and dad had sat her and Hermione down and explained to them that they should always tell them when they heard someone say that word._

 _So she hurls herself that the older boy and punches him as hard as she can._

 _She earns herself a punch back._

* * *

Desdemona is ten and she is hungry, despite the fact she had eaten a lot at her grandma's birthday.

It's kinda odd, but she doesn't really put much into it. She's too busy counting the days until her birthday in December when her letter will arrive. It's still almost half a year until then, but that will only make the moment sweeter when it finally arrives.

 **.**

 _Dudley is eleven and he hasn't eaten anything in twelve hours. They've just come back from some shack in the middle of the sea._

 _It's the first time he can remember feeling what he now knows to be hunger and not what he thought was hunger before but turned out to be appetite._

 _And his cousin had to feel this more often than not, which Dudley thought would make it worse? Even if he was a freak, was that really fair?_

* * *

Dudley is twelve and his first begins bleeding during lunch on the seventh of December.

 **.**

 _It's Desdemona's eleventh birthday and no letter arrives._

 _She punches the wall until her parents drag her away._

* * *

 _Dudley is fourteen and he has a crush on a boy. His friends punch him when they learn of it._

 _ **.**_

 _Desdemona is thirteen and she's above her age group in Krav Maga._

 _Punching racists definitely is a fair use of these abilities, even if they punch back._

* * *

Desdemona is fourteen and she's pretty sure she's feeling these Dementors Hermione had told her about.

A quick check with the people around her reveals that it's a soul mate thing.

 **.**

 _Dudley is fifteen and it feels like he will never be happy again._

 _So many horrible things he said and did. Is it too late to stop?_

 _He hopes not._

* * *

Dudley is sixteen and his lower body hurts terribly. His mother takes him to a doctor, just in case, but it gets confirms to be soulmate pain.

 **.**

 _Desdemona is fifteen and has her first period. She supposed she had been lucky to get it this late._

* * *

Dudley is seventeen and they spent a year on the run. He's learned to distinct his pain and soulmate pain pretty well over the years — there is no way his soulmate did not do sports, no matter what his mother told him — but he still pauses every so often.

Today is one of them.

.

 _Desdemona is sixteen, saving magical people too incompetent to do it herself and someone just hexed her. She ignores the pain and carries on._

* * *

The war is over and Desdemona feels a crushing hug.

 **.**

 _Dudley apologizes to Harry when they reunite. Harry almost crushes him, even though Dudley does not understand why._

* * *

Dudley is at work when he feels pain at his side. Absently, he wonders what his soulmate is getting up to now.

 **.**

 _Desdemona has an incident involving a car hitting her when she is 21. Even if the driver is not her soulmate, she loved the woman as long as it lasted, nonetheless._

* * *

Desdemona is twenty four when she meets a guy.

.

 _It takes Dudley three months to figure out his girlfriend Desdemona is his soulmate._


End file.
